The person in question has given us the following information:
On the 20th of March 1944, a day after the Germans invaded the country I wanted
to send a pack to my husband who was in labour service with one of his comrades,
who spent his days off at home and was travelling back the same day. I asked a
policeman whether I could enter the building of the railway station. He politely
responded “Just come in,” and he right away put me in the line of other captured
Jews. In the evening they took me to Kistarcsa, and the 29th of April to
Auschwitz.
The first weeks in Kistarcsa were awful. 10-12 people lay on a straw mattress
without any cover or provision. The only food we got was sent to us by the
Hungarian National Jewish Aid Action. There was a policeman called Bakos, who
was infinitely cruel to us. He destroyed us mentally. He kept telling us that
“You would not go home from here any more.”
It appeared that he was going to be right because we had to leave for Auschwitz
the 28th of April. There were 78 people in the freight car: 50 women and 28 men.
We arrived after a day of travel. On arrival, they asked us at the station
whether someone was sick or unable to walk. Naturally, many volunteered. They
were sent directly to the gas chamber. In those days the train stopped far away,
and later we - the first Hungarian transport – built the rail on which the
train could come closer. For three weeks we stayed in a so-called quarantine
before I got into the so-called Kanadakommando together with 150 others.
The Kanadakommando used to open the luggage and sort out the clothes of the
deported. We received better treatment, and wore the same striped clothes and
red headscarves. I spent here around four months. We worked with the clothes of
dead people. We found documents and photos in their pockets. Mentally, this work
destroyed us completely. It was horrible to see the chimneys throwing out fire
everyday, and to see the pits on fire from afar. Dead bodies were so numerous
that the crematoria did not have the capacities to burn them all so they burnt
people also in pits out in the open.
There were transports that arrived during the night and were sent to the gas
chamber without selections. There were nights when they burnt 25,000 people.
People from the last Hungarian transport came from Újpest and the neighbourhoods
of Pest. A few weeks later there was less work to do because no new transports
arrived so the Kanadakommando was dismissed. My last horrible memory working in
the Kanada is the episode when men, who had worked in the gas chambers, were
brought to our place and gassed in the room where the Kanada used to gas
clothes.
For four weeks I was in quarantine from where I got into an Aussenkommando. On
the third day an SS-man beat me almost to death with no apparent reason only
because he was drunk. He was treading on me, kicking me, and he broke three of
my ribs. The German head doctor of the hospital prepared a report (so-called
Meldung) about it, since it was too much even for him. I stayed in hospital for
8 days, and I could stay another week in the block for the convalescent.
Later, I was transferred into the commando of the weaving mill. This was the
most horrible. If we did not weave the expected quantity they would beat us. The
road to the workplace led through totally muddy parts and we crossed them
without shoes and warm clothes.
At the end of October, also the commando of the weaving mill was moved into Camp
C. This was even more horrible because the rain fell into the block. We stood
there lined up for roll call in the freezing cold and we had to work afterwards.
It also happened that they were disinfecting us all the night and we could not
sleep at all but we had to go to work all the same.
At the same time the kitchen moved and it meant that we did not get a bite of
food from Sunday noon till Wednesday evening. They said it was a punishment but
we never found out for what.
When they wanted to make Aryan people work in the weaving mill the Jews were
dismissed and I was selected for a transport the 29th of November.
They took me to St. Gheorgenthal, where I worked for an aircraft parts plant. In
the beginning there were only 200 people working there guarded by 10
Aufseherins. These Aufseherins were quite nice when compared to those in
Auschwitz. When Russians approached us they brought here prisoners from various
camps, and also the SS came with them. This meant that life became hell also
here. They would keep beating us. We dug trenches, and they forced us to get
prepared to counter the enemy. On the 20th of December, I fell sick with
pneumonia and typhus that had an effect later also on my legs.
The 9th of May, the Russians liberated us. I spent another two weeks in hospital
before I came home.